Looking after your own children IS work

[Bumpitybumper]

Oxford Dictionary definition of "work":
activity involving mental or physical effort done in order to achieve a purpose or result

AIBU to suggest that the people that suggest that looking after one's own children isn't work are wrong and in some cases are actively trying to devalue and undermine the people (usually women) that do the majority of childcare?

Would be really interested to understand how anyone can read this definition and argue that looking after children isn't work.

Well people have different motivations and circumstances in life. Hardly a shocker is it?

Well TBF it's humans full stop who are destroying the planet

Obviously! So having more of them is utter stupidity from an environmental point of view. Oooom didn't choose to be born but she did choose to exacerbate the problem.

There is value in recognising work be it paid employment, voluntary or domestic.

How many threads are posted daily by exasperated parents (usually mothers) because their partner does not engage with the "work" of parenting and just the fun, fluffy bits. A lot of social damage is done by faliure to recognise different types of work and to distribute it appropriately.

I've been a FT/ PT working parent and now a SAHM. I remained a parent throughout, but the "work" of parenting distributed differently when aspects of it were outsourced to a childcare provider. When nursery/ wrap around care served breakfast, that was not my work in preparing food, supervising a child and cleaning up. Some aspects of parenting such as laundry were pretty much unchanged. There was one afternoon when strike action found me parenting in my own classroom trying to talk deadpan to y9 while pretending there wasn't a 5yo up my dress, and it definitely took combining full-time work and full-time parenting a step too far

Being a SAHM has different social value to my previous paid employment. I am able to contribute more voluntary community work to several local organisations. My DCs are happier and have time for more opportunities. One DC has additional needs and was miserable with wrap around care, and standard holiday clubs are unsuitable for him (sports clubs with a bunch of unknown children in a big echoey hall are hellish to him). Our current arrangement is very favourable to his school life as he would need much more support to deal with the consequences of less time in his home environment with a parent. That benefit is invisible, but not without value. My time while they are in school is very pleasant, but in the unlikely event of finding appropriate paid employment that does not affect time with the DCs, that extra social pressure on me would still filter back on them.

I've no issue with other parents' employment status; do what works best with the options avaliable to you, that work for your family life. It is disingenuous to suggest that work is limited only to paid employment though.

Anyone who chooses to be alive is exacerbating the problem.

I take it you chose not to have children Shush?

By the way, I have four.

Yes, it's work and more important than most paid work.

But because women have been forced to work for free doing this for so long we've been conditioned to not see it as work.

Of course it is.

The fact that some jobs are paid with money and some aren't is skewing people's idea about what work is.

As a nanny, I got well paid for looking after children and it was exhausting (12 hour shifts).

As a mum, my shifts are longer, I am on call 24/7 with no regular time off. Why does that suddenly make exactly the same activity not work?

Unpaid work is still work. It's not the money that makes it work.

Well yes that's the logical end point too!

Humans have children. Lots of men want children. Telling women off as if it's their sole fault on an individual level seems a bit harsh! One woman in the UK having a child does not bear more responsibility for state of planet than oil company pouring oil into the Niger, for example.

Women are to blame for everything

What about the religions that ban abortion? They are way less awful than Debbie from Tottenham and her 4yo!

I take it you chose not to have children Shush?

Haha! No! I have 2.

I'm not the one gushing about the wonderful impact I've had on society by having them though.

Environmental problems are caused by the lifestyle of current adults. We don’t know what kind of lifestyle people are going to be living in 25 years. It is very unlikely that a child born now is going to go around squandering the earth’s resources in the way current adults do.

So it’s nonsense to compare someone else’s child’s future to your own current adult behaviour.

So many - your nanny job was work for which you were paid. You didn’t give birth and love those kids - they were a job. Looking after your kids, stemming from your choice to reproduce, is parenting.

The two are entirely different.

“There's nothing wrong with being a SAHP. But I really don't agree that it's valuable to society.”

@Oooom

These bloody mums! How dare they want to stay with their own children. Just imagine! What could they possibly think they could have to offer their own children? Strike them down in flames, I say, Useless!!

Children should just be put in a cupboard 8am-6pm. Or get another woman in to “just do childcare” and pay her minimum wage - because the children won’t notice the difference.

Who cares? The whole thing has no value anyway. Meanwhile, the mums could be day in oh-so-valuable meetings in offices, or sending valuable emails in between MNing. Then, they’d be really VALUABLE humans.

LOL at this! ^

Some comments on this thread aimed at stay at home mums are absolutely disgusting. The bitterness and vitriol oozing out of the pores of several posters on here is repugnant, and very unpleasant to see.

I have been a full-time SAHM, I have been a part-time working mum, and I have been a full-time-working mum, and the life of a stay-at-home-mum was DEFINITELY the best life. Lots of freedom, and I could do what I wanted WHEN I wanted. Working part-time was good too though, as I did 2.5 days a week so had lots of free time with my kids.

But I was still busy when they were at school, and active in the community. Like many stay-at-home-mums are. This image of stay-at-home-mums sitting on their arse all day, watching TV from 9am to 3pm is laughable. And it's always working women who are resentful and bitter that they cannot stay at home who say this kind of shit.

I now work 24-25 hours a week (some from home some in my office) as my kids are now grown, as I am lucky enough to have a job that is very computer/admin based..

Whatever I have ever done though, I have never resented - or criticized - other mums for what they chose to do.

Seriously though, WTF is their problem? (These women being so horrible about stay-at-home-mums?!) Some comments are just nasty. They must be very unhappy people.

As for the comments about people acting like stay-at-home-mums are superior, I see very little of that, and WAAAAY more of people being downright nasty about stay-at-home-mums. You should be ashamed of yourselves.

As a pp said 'if these posters are not jealous and bitter, then why are they being so nasty about stay-at-home-mums?' These few posters really are making themselves look very unpleasant indeed.

Telling women off as if it's their sole fault on an individual level seems a bit harsh!

Oh please! I was hardly telling her off. I was simply jesting about the impact she has had on society by having kids.

Some people are so touchy and lacking in a sense of humour. Ah well, can't be helped I guess.

Given the widely-documented adverse environmental impact of having children, I would say that was a given. Perhaps not in the way you intended though

Environmental problems are caused by the lifestyle of current adults.

And one of those lifestyle choices is to have children. QED.

Well you did say she was utterly stupid

And now that she has a negative impact on society

Women don't make babies by themselves!

Anyway, it has been lovely winding some of you up but I have better things to go and do now.

I wince when I hear SAHMs saying 'ooh I'm knackered.' Yeah right. From doing what exactly?

Well you did say she was utterly stupid

No. I said it was utter stupidity. Not that she was stupid.

Really, if you're going to continually try to argue a point, do try to improve your English comprehension beyond the point of 'shockingly crap'.

‘Environmental problems are caused by the lifestyle of current adults.

And one of those lifestyle choices is to have children. QED.’

Having a child is not necessarily bad for the environment. Climate change and associated problems aren’t an excuse for advocating eugenics.

If you think the population is too big and that the solution is population reduction, then you go first.

I don't see why everything needs a "label" as such. Work to me would imply that you are employed. I don't see why being a working Mum or SAHM needs to be justified to anyone in anyway. It's what's right for you and your family at the end of the day.

I'm not feeling very wound up at all tbh

Interesting views on this thread all round. Makes me understand how some quarters of the press that like to blame women for every ill in society get support!

I’m saying that when I was a social worker, it was hard to feel as if you made any real impact on anyone. There was so much bureaucracy and you had such massive caseloads, you felt as if you were actually helping anyone. Plus, everyone was so concerned with covering their backs and people just worked in their own “boxes”, if that makes sense. It was quite soul destroying, tbh and I just felt like a cog in an inadequate system.

I realise that not everyone has the choice to SAH, so I’m not “gushing”, but after a decade trying to help other people’s children, why on earth wouldn’t I want to be around for my own? So when so say “impact”, I mean that there have been no limits to what I can give to my own kids, whereas at work, I always felt curtailed, replaceable and frustrated.

That's 'work' in the sense you can put hard work' into something.

It is not 'work' in sense that it is employment or a job.

I don't care what you do with your life, but other mums have to do both so there no need to play the hard done by role.

You're a homemaker - live by it.

It depends on your perspective.

Many mums would love to be SAHMs but cannot afford to. I doubt they'd describe it as work in the terms you mean.

I work and have dd. Considering that comparing paid work and looking after your children is like comparing apples and oranges, by your logic you have one job. I have 2 jobs.

In the same vein, if you class childcare and running your house as 2 jobs then I have 3 jobs. Because i still do all 3.

So no, i dont think they are the same if you apply your original considerations.

I wince when I hear SAHMs saying 'ooh I'm knackered.' Yeah right. From doing what exactly?

not having as many breaks and time to waste on MN as we have?

Just because you would do nothing at all doesn't mean everybody else is as narrow minded.